Tonight

Lifelong Davenport resident Frank Fritz shows off some of his collection at his home. Fritz, who stars on the "American Pickers" cable TV series with Mike Wolfe, specializes in motorcycles, and transportation and advertising collectibles. (Photo by Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

'American Pickers' co-star proud of Davenport roots

David Burke

Jan 17, 2011

JEFF COOK

Lifelong Davenport resident Frank Fritz shows off some of his collection at his home. Fritz, who stars on the "American Pickers" cable TV series with Mike Wolfe, specializes in motorcycles, and transportation and advertising collectibles. (Photo by Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

Ever since it debuted on the History cable TV channel a year ago
this week, the “American Pickers” reality series has become
synonymous with LeClaire, Iowa.

But wait a minute, says Frank Fritz, who is half of the show’s
star duo along with Mike Wolfe. Fritz was born and raised in
Davenport and has lived there all of his 47 years. Wolfe’s business
is based in LeClaire.

“It seems like the whole world is out in LeClaire,” Fritz said,
sitting on the floor of his Davenport home. “I don’t live in
LeClaire, I live here.”

Fritz grew up on Mound Street in Davenport. His mother, Susan
Zirbes, worked for a construction company and his stepfather, Dick
Zirbes, was a tire salesman. They live in Bettendorf.

“I’m very happy my mother is alive to see my little five minutes
of fame,” Fritz said.

His father lives in Dallas, and Fritz said the two are not
close. “He’s a little closer now since the show started,” Fritz
said with a laugh.

As a teenager, Fritz took jobs at Quad-City Automatic Sprinkler
and Coast to Coast Hardware to help him earn the $4,100 he needed
to buy a brand-new Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

But it was at what is now Sudlow Intermediate School in
Davenport that Fritz discovered the joys of collecting, be it
postage stamps, rocks or beer cans. He’d follow the train tracks
from his home to the Village of East Davenport and pick up items
that were discarded by hobos riding the railroad cars.

While at Sudlow, he met a young Mike Wolfe, whose tastes in
collecting ran more toward old bicycles and discarded
jack-o’-lanterns until, Fritz recalls, the pumpkins began rotting
and Wolfe realized why they were being thrown away. Both Fritz and
Wolfe attended Bettendorf High School.

Fritz worked for 25 years as a fire inspector, covering an area
from Des Moines to Cedar Falls, Iowa, and began picking up
firefighter and firehouse-related trinkets. After he bought one
item for $15 and sold it for $475, he thought he could make a
living that way.

In 2002, he quit his job and established Frank’s Finds,
traveling the country to find objects he eventually could sell.

As a bachelor with no children, “I was in the position to be
able to do it,” he said. “A lot of people in this world are
smarter, have more money, know more about stuff, but they haven’t
chosen the direction or come to that crossroads in their life.”

Fritz specializes in motorcycles, transportation and advertising
collectibles. He has his own collections of toy motorcycles and
fire equipment in glass cases at his house as well as what he calls
a sizeable number of motorcycles — all types of models — at an
undisclosed Davenport location.

(An active biker, Fritz was president of the area ABATE chapter
for nine years, and he has attended the famous annual motorcycle
rally in Sturgis, S.D., for 29 straight years.)

He frequently would overlap with fellow finder Wolfe, and
eventually Wolfe pitched Fritz on the idea of cameras following
them at work for a TV show. Justin Anderson of Crazy Eyes
Productions in Davenport helped produce a video they could pitch to
networks.

“We always knew we had something because everyone we showed it
to really liked it,” Fritz said.

When he or Wolfe would tell friends of their collecting
adventures, “They’d be like, ‘No way,’ and we’d be ‘way.’ This is
how these things happen.”

Despite having “two no-namers from Iowa riding around in a van,”
Fritz joked, History eventually picked up “Pickers,” 4 1/2 years
after the idea first formed.

The first time Fritz saw himself onscreen was with family and
friends for the premiere a year ago at the Capitol Theatre in
downtown Davenport.

What he and Wolfe do on camera, Fritz said, is nothing different
than what they’ve done for years.

“We just have people who follow us around and shoot us,” he
said. An eight- to nine-person crew — producers, a director, camera
and sound operators, production assistants and drivers — go on the
road with them.

It’s easier, Fritz said, because he and Wolfe don’t have to
introduce themselves and have already talked on the phone with the
subjects.

“Now, the people know we’re coming. But when I knock on the
door, that’s the first time I’ve met these people,” he said. “When
they open up that garage or cellar or barn and we see what they’ve
got, the viewer is right there with us.”

In the first season alone, the two logged 50,000 miles,
traveling to 22 states in their 2006 Mercedes Sprinter van.

“We were able to become a team even though we have different
thoughts on things,” Fritz said.

The show is in the middle of airing its second season, and a
third has begun taping, with its first episodes taking place in
Texas and Louisiana.

It’s among History’s highest-rated series, with new episodes
shown at 8 p.m. Mondays and repeats throughout the week.

A new production schedule will allow Fritz and Wolfe to go on
the road with the show for two weeks at a time, followed by two
weeks on their own.

The first two seasons would tape for 12-14 hours a day for 17-19
days — all to make a 44-minute episode (with commercials filling
out the hour).

Mark Portner, an executive producer of “Pickers” (as is Wolfe)
said Fritz has an everyman quality with which viewers identify.

“Frank’s a funny guy,” Portner said from his New York office.
“He’s got a wry sense of humor and comes off as very likeable.
People can relate to him. He’s a guy from a small Midwest town and
what’s not to like?”

Portner said it’s evident to him that Fritz is a hard worker and
not afraid to take chances.

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“He’s not a polished ‘TV Guy.’ All of that put together comes
off as a very likeable guy,” Portner added. “He’s a guy you’d love
to go out and get a beer with.”

When Fritz and Wolfe aren’t taping, there’s an increasing number
of public appearances, signing autographs at various outdoors, boat
and car shows. They’ve also appeared on Rachael Ray’s TV talk show,
and they were guests last week on “The Late Show with David
Letterman.”

“I was always a very busy person, but I’m increasingly more busy
now,” Fritz said.

With a year of TV celebrity comes a slew of recognition in
public, predominantly in the South. “They don’t expect to see me
somewhere like there,” he said.

“Anywhere we go, we get mobbed when someone recognizes us,” he
said. “But in my hometown? Maybe people recognize us, but they
don’t say anything.

“If we’re together, we get recognized,” Fritz said of Wolfe and
himself. “People will come up to me and say, ‘Have you seen the
show “American Pickers”? You look like the guy ...’ ”

Once Fritz speaks, he said, people figure it out.

He said stardom hasn’t gone to his head.

“I haven’t changed that much. Money doesn’t make my world go
around, so I haven’t changed a lot,” said Fritz, who still drives
the 1986 Ford Ranger pickup he’s had for 24 years.

“I live a simple life. ... I’ve got lots of friends, so I don’t
really need per se to be in the spotlight as much,” he added.

The attention he’s received has been interesting, Fritz said,
from autograph seekers to those offering to buy him a beer.

“Now I know what real good-looking girls must go through in
life,” he said with a grin. “It seems like every once in a while I
get extra treatment or ‘That’s OK, we’ll get it, Frank.’ That must
be how pretty girls go through their whole life.”

Fritz said he’s enjoying living in the moment, but he knows the
ride will end someday.

“The bottom line is, let’s have some fun,” he said. “There was
life before ‘Pickers’ and there will be life after ‘Pickers,’ but
this is the one time in our life ... where we want to enjoy it.
Let’s not look back on this.

“There will be a day when people will be, ‘Um, uh, weren’t you
guys on that one show?’ We’re hot now, but one day we’ll go to the
wayside. Like we say, we’ll ride this bus as long as it’s
running.”